Fatigue rules: too harsh... and one piece of trivia

[Glorelendil]

And even in an imaginery universe I want my most vulnerable bodypart be better protected than bodyparts that have less impact on my survivability in close combat. Common sense.

I'd rather have the ability to narratively choose the location where I get hit.

Make Believe > Reality

EDIT: Just in case it's not obvious what I mean by that, in the real world a pair of bracers is of marginal usefulness against, say, a battle axe. But in game world we might have magical bracers that give us +2 Protection...and no other armor.... We get hit by a Gandalf with a battle-axe, roll our Protection dice, and then narrate how our magical bracers protected us from the axe. Who needs to protect vitals?

[Rich H]

EDIT: Just in case it's not obvious what I mean by that, in the real world a pair of bracers is of marginal usefulness against, say, a battle axe. But in game world we might have magical bracers that give us +2 Protection...and no other armor.... We get hit by a Gandalf with a battle-axe, roll our Protection dice, and then narrate how our magical bracers protected us from the axe. Who needs to protect vitals?

Little bit of a joke/side-comment: when we were kids and playing D&D our magic user had Bracers of Defense and the player used to speak with a bit of a lisp/speech impediment on account that he was wearing such things. It explained a lot but I was also pretty disappointed when we figured out it didn't mean the corrective braces you wear on your teeth. Our version of D&D where Magic Users that talked oddly due to wearing BoDs was pretty cool. Proper RPing that.

[Stormcrow]

Exactly. In a middle earth game, I'm personally not interested in combat realism. I'm interested in combat that feels like the scenes from the source material.

When I brought up realism, I wasn't bringing up historical accuracy. I just said that getting tired after a single heavy-armor-penetrating blow is realistic—that is, it's quite believable.

As you point out yourself, in the books we have examples of lightly armed and armored adventurers going on adventures, and we have examples of heavily armed and armored warriors going into battle. But we have no examples of heavily armed and armored adventurers going on adventures (except maybe Earendil in Bilbo's poem, but Tolkien never wrote the story of Earendil's adventures). So sticking to the source material falls down as soon as you ask the game to do that. What's the best fallback position? How about plausibility?

If you only give heavily armed and armored adventurers only a bit of token fatigue compared to lightly armed adventurers, then the signal you're sending is that the lightly armed and armored ones are being foolish and inefficient. Everyone ought to wear the heaviest armor and carry the biggest weapons they can get their hands on.

I agree that hauling a lot of gear should contribute to getting weary, but not after a single blow.

Why not after a single blow? Frodo is hit by a spear and made Weary after that single blow, even though the spear did not penetrate his mithril armor, and his armor was lighter than anything you'll get on the equipment lists.

If you don't want to become Weary by a single blow, don't wear so much armor. I don't see the textual evidence to support heavily armed and armored adventurers in Tolkien. Most of his characters try to avoid fighting.

[frodolives]

I really don't feel like debating. Guess I'm weary

[torus]

Seems to me a lot of discussions here get mired in the 'realism v representation' debate. Not sure why it should be more of a stumbling block for Middle-earth gaming than in other games based on fiction or TV shows etc.

[Glorelendil]

When I brought up realism, I wasn't bringing up historical accuracy. I just said that getting tired after a single heavy-armor-penetrating blow is realistic—that is, it's quite believable.

I think there's a difference between using realism to justify interesting game mechanics...which is what you are doing...and trying to adhere to realism for its own sake (which may be at the expense of interesting game mechanics.)

One of the flaws (in my opinion) of D&D 5e is that plate armor is just all around better than any other armor. Which, historically/realistically, might be true. But that doesn't make for any interesting game decisions: everybody of course wants plate armor. They try to limit access by requiring "proficiency" and making it expensive, but never is there an interesting decision.

I'd much rather have mechanics...like in TOR...in which there is no "best" decision, and no matter which decision you take you're sacrificing something to get something else. As long as it doesn't completely contradict "realism" I don't mind if the details are sketchy.

[Indur Dawndeath]

I'd much rather have mechanics...like in TOR...in which there is no "best" decision, and no matter which decision you take you're sacrificing something to get something else. As long as it doesn't completely contradict "realism" I don't mind if the details are sketchy.

I agree completly with this +1
In other games you would get penalized on climbing, stealth and so forth. Mechanics that restricts play Instead of adding to the story. Realistic yes, but not fun...
And if you really want to wear heavy armour in TOR, then chose high Heart, rewards that reduce encumbrance and virtues that increase endurance...

[torus]

I'd much rather have mechanics...like in TOR...in which there is no "best" decision, and no matter which decision you take you're sacrificing something to get something else. As long as it doesn't completely contradict "realism" I don't mind if the details are sketchy.

In other games you would get penalized on climbing, stealth and so forth. Mechanics that restricts play Instead of adding to the story. Realistic yes, but not fun...

Let's not get into what is and isn't fun, since it's is such an individual-specific thing. Many of us do find it fun to have true-to-life constraints imposed on the game, and to play out how we would deal with the situations it presents given the imaginary skills and resources our characters have.

[Indur Dawndeath]

Let's not get into what is and isn't fun, since it's is such an individual-specific thing. Many of us do find it fun to have true-to-life constraints imposed on the game, and to play out how we would deal with the situations it presents given the imaginary skills and resources our characters have.

Ok. I’m not telling anyone how they should play to have fun.
The mechanics in TOR are working very well for me, and it is fun for me and my group, that everyone can join in an ambush, and everyone has a chance to pass the opening of a Snowtroll cave, without knowing that one or two guys in heavy armour will fail their stealth test.